Jonathan Pillow
comp neuro prof @ Princeton
brains, machine learning, & postmodern angst
pillowlab.princeton.edu
- New paper with @deanpospisil.bsky.social , in which we introduce a new estimator for the "signal eigenspectrum" (i.e., the eigenvalues of the noiseless population responses). We re-analyze data from Stringer et al 2019 and show eigenvalues of mouse V1 are well explained by a broken power.
- New paper out at PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Revisiting the high-dimensional geometry of population responses in the visual cortex with @jpillowtime.bsky.social. The review took forever because a reviewer was doubtful our new estimator can infer eigenvalues beyond the rank of the data! (1/6)
- Bichan Wu (@bichanw.bsky.social) & I wrote a tutorial paper on Reduced Rank Regression (RRR) — the statistical method underlying "communication subspaces" from Semedo et al 2019 — aimed at neuroscientists. arxiv.org/abs/2512.12467
- Part of our motivation was our own difficulty understanding RRR and its mathematical origins (e.g., Why is this an eigenvector problem?). We thought others might benefit from a simple derivation and some figures and comparisons to build intuition.
- We also derive some useful (known) extensions, such as adding a ridge penalty ("ridge RRR") and non-spherical noise (accounting for correlated response noise), both of which preserve a closed-form solution.
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View full threadWe'd be grateful for any comments about points we overlooked, additional citations, as well as any corrections, clarifications, or suggestions for improvement! 🙏
- Great opportunity to learn to use fancy neural data analysis tools developed at the @flatironinstitute.org. Sign up for this workshop at SFN 2025!
- 🎉 Deadline is *tomorrow*! Join the @flatironinstitute.org workshop on pynapple & NeMos @sfn.org this November to analyze and model neural data pynapple: analyze neural time series NeMoS: model neural population dynamics Meals + accommodation included 👉 neurorse.flatironinstitute.org/events/2025/...
- Reposted by Jonathan PillowNow out in @natcomms.nature.com: Mice and monkeys spontaneously shift through comparable cognitive states - and it's written all over their faces! (1/7) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Diffusion modeling folks: many sources (including Wikipedia) cite Robbins 1956 as the original source for Tweedie's formula (E[z | x] = x + sig^2 \grad log p(x)). But as far as I can tell — the formula appears nowhere in that paper. Did I miss it? Can anyone explain what's going on here?
- In fact, Robbins 1956 ("An empirical Bayes approach to statistics") doesn't even consider Gaussian likelihoods. Only Poisson, geometric, binomial. So I'm puzzled about why this is the go-to citation. Are there multiple versions of this paper floating around??
- Reposted by Jonathan Pillow"to run a contest that you end up not funding as a private organization at this time is… both extremely wasteful of these people’s time, and just devastating in terms of morale." I spoke with @aniloza.bsky.social at STAT today about HHMI's decision not to fund this round of Hanna Gray applicants.
- We are writing a tutorial paper on reduced rank regression (RRR), aimed primarily at neuroscientists. Q: Does anyone have suggestions for where to publish such a paper?
- By way of background: RRR is the method used for estimating a "communication subspace" between brain regions, introduced in Semedo et al 2019, and now growing in popularity for the analysis of multi-region datasets.
- The RRR estimator dates back to Izenman 1975, but we have found the original stats literature a bit hard to digest. So our paper paper aims to build intuition and give a simple derivation of RRR, along with several extensions (e.g., L2 regularization, non-isotropic noise).
- But there are no new results, per se. Any thoughts or suggestions for where to publish would be most appreciated!
- Reposted by Jonathan Pillow"We are passionate about science and its benefits to society, but we fear more what will happen if we do not help defend everyone’s fundamental rights." Op-ed I co-wrote w/ @samwang.bsky.social @jpillowtime.bsky.social @ilanawitten.bsky.social & David Tank www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2025...
- Reposted by Jonathan PillowPynapple is a Python-based neural analysis package designed to streamline your research. It integrates seamlessly with your projects, offering tools for processing, analyzing, and visualizing neural data. Follow us for updates, tutorials, and community insights! #Pynapple #NeuralAnalysis #OpenSource
- Reposted by Jonathan PillowThis drone situation in NJ is bonkers! Patch has had the best coverage so far. patch.com/new-jersey/p...
- Reposted by Jonathan Pillow(recycled form X @ 2021) Are you interested in the dimensionality of neural data, but missed our #BernsteinConference workshop? Worry not! Instead, join me in this long thread (1/37) attempting to summarise it and (my view of) the field more broadly.
- Princeton folks — check out this story from Carolyn Jones about safety on our local roads! Interesting stats even if you're not a safety geek... 🧐
- V. proud of this paper on "cell type dynamical systems", to appear at NeurIPS 2024 — led by the fearless @aditijh.bsky.social !!
- Excited to share our NeurIPS spotlight paper that develops cell-type dynamical systems to understand the effects of neural perturbations, and roles of distinct cell classes in a neural circuit! Joint work w/ @dikshagup.bsky.social , Carlos Brody, @jpillowtime.bsky.social . (Details below)
- If you've used @intlbrainlab.bsky.social data or tools in some way, could you spare 1 minute to tell us how? short survey: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... Thanks in advance! 🙏
- Reposted by Jonathan Pillow😂
